MrNussbaum.com
was developed with the idea that crucial concepts, themes,
ideas, and fact sets taught in the classroom can be enhanced
over the internet through interactivity. Furthermore, for
teachers to have a reliable k -8 internet site to use in
the computer lab or in the classroom, that likely covers
one or many themes currently being taught. MrNussbaum.com
offers dozens of interactive games specifically designed
to pinpoint one or several essential concepts taught in
elementary years, and dozens of research themes designed
to make the process of gathering information interactive
and enjoyable. MrNussbaum.com, however, does not just present
information, but in addition, provides numerous interactive
activities to complement the presentation of interactive
information.
MrNussbaum.com
also offers many different kinds of teacher tools such as
QuizMaker on MrNussbaum.com premium, worksheet generators,
and others to make the difficult job of teaching much easier.
Your students will think you are awesome when you register
their class for MrNussbaum.com
Premium! Each time they play any of the 23 available
games (when logged in), their scores are recorded in gradebook
form. You can also make and deploy customizable quizzes,
and even give online spelling tests - you will never have
to hand grade them again! Sign your students up for an intra-class
tournament on any of the games, or, use my global tournaments
system to schedule tournaments against other classes from
around the country and globe. The premium site also offers
bookmarking, messaging, and homework deployment services.
When students use MrNussbaum.com Premium, they earn world
flag images and can collect flags from every independent
country in the world. There is no other site like MrNussbaum.com
and MrNussbaum.com Premium. Please remember, everything
on the site and the premium site is FREE for your use!
Who
is MrNussbaum?
Greg
Nussbaum (Mr.Nussbaum) at the Continental Divide
I am
a 31 year old fourth grade teacher at the Gifted and Talented
Center of White Oaks Elementary School (Fairfax County Public
Schools, VA). I was formerly a computer and technology teacher
at Fairview Elementary School, where I was nominated for
the Agnes Scott Meyer/Fairfax County Teacher of the Year
in 2004. I received my bachelor's degree from Hamilton College
(upstate New York) in 1998, and my Master's degree from
the University of Pittsburgh (my hometown) in 2000. I turned
30 on August 14 2005, and have been married for four years.
I currently live in Cascades, Virginia (Loudoun County).
I grew up in beautiful Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and am a
passionate Steelers and Pirates fan.
Why
are there so many ads on MrNussbaum.com?
Mrnussbaum.com
and mrnussbaumgames.com receive between one and two million
page views every month (as of spring 2006). Consequently,
bandwidth associated with the sites can be expensive. The
advertisements offset the cost of the site and the thousands
of hours spent over the last three years developing the
site. As much as I would like to offer the site without
the ads, it would be impossible. I think the site with advertisements
is better than no site at all. Trust me, this is not a commercial
endeavor. Any money I happen to make is invested into the
site, its maintenance, and its development. While I create
most of the games, I have recently begun outsourcing some
of the programming. Your FEEDBACK is most welcome. Please
e-mail me and tell
you what you think of the NEW and IMPROVED MrNussbaum.com
Where do you get all of the information and images?
Information and images are gathered from a number of sources
including:
Open
Source documents, lists, and databases (such as statistics
on world nations and states)
Open
Source image archives
Owners
of images who give permission (All bird images are taken
from http://www.westol.org/~banding with permission from
site owner)
Wikipedia.org
www.worldatlas.com
(for images that are documented as free for any use)
www.clipart.com
images.fws.gov
Awards
MrNussbaum.com
has received awards from edunetconnect.com, bonus.com, teacherscorner.com,
and was recently featured in the May 2006 edition of Classroom
Connect. Many well-known sites link to MrNussbaum.com including
yahooligans, internet4classrooms, multiplication.com, kidsconnect,
mathforum.org, and gamequarium. Because it is a new site,
I expect more awards in the coming years.
Contact
You can
always contact me concerning any topic regarding the site.
I usually respond within 24 or 48 hours. Click here
to e-mail me.
Site
Directory/Navigation
There
are over 3,000 pages on MrNussbaum.com. Consequently, creating
a navigation system that allows easy access to all of the
pages is challenging. Nevertheless, navigating the site is
now much easier. There are several navigational tools that
allow teachers, parents, and students to find what they are
looking for quickly. Below are descriptions of the navigational
features
Always
return to the home page by clicking on the large logo at the
top of most pages. * Navigate to different
parts of the site by using the nine buttons located below
the main logo. * Use the site map
(one of the nine menu buttons) to see text links of all available
categories. * Use the search tool
to locate anything in the site. * There are not links
to grade-level pages, but, rather, activities on each page
are organized by grade level. If you are looking for, say,
Cloze Reading activities for third grade, first visit the
Cloze Reading page, then, scroll down until you find third
grade. Grade level activities on main pages are organized
by color.
Why is there minimal grade-level navigation?
Games
and activities are sorted by grade-level once a user clicks
on a main page (e.g. math). I have chosen to build the site
navigation by skill set rather than by grade-level, however,
for philosophical reasons. I know it is often easier for teachers
to click on a grade-level button and see all activities deemed
suitable for students in that grade. However, I want students
to explore the site based on how far their skills take them,
rather than on what grade-level they are on. Most of the games
on MrNussbaum.com are designed so that students in grades
1 through 8 can play them. Each game begins at a certain difficulty
level and progresses to harder and harder levels, or, each
is customizable based on difficulty level. For example, a
student in first grade can certainly play Speed Math. An average
first grader may score 10 or 15, whereas the average fifth
grader may score 40 or 50. In Everglades Spelling, the average
third grader may be able to get to rounds two or three, whereas
the average 5th grader may get to round 5 or 6. The games
are meant for students to challenge themselves. The thousands
of drills, flash cards, interactive worksheets, and timed
exercises, however, are grouped by grade level. Students and
teachers must click on the activity first, and then find grade-level
activities which are sorted by color.
What's
New
You can
see what has been recently added to MrNussbaum.com by clicking
here . This page is updated every two
weeks or so.
Other
Frequently Asked Questions
I get
asked a lot of interesting questions. Below are the most common.
Can
you help with me with my homework? Unfortunately,
I cannot help with homework.
Why
did you start the site? I thought
I could create an awesome resource for people to use throughout
the world. It started off as a simple class page, but has
evolved into something much bigger.
I
found an error or typo, what should I do?
Please e-mail me as soon as possible. There are invariably
going to be errors on a site so large. I do my very best
to edit the site, but I am sure it is not free of errors.
If the site were one or two pages there would be no excuse.
Most major website have people who do nothing but edit.
I am the only editor for MrNussbaum.com
How
do you make a website? It is actually
very easy to make a simple website. I
learned the basics from buying a HTML for Dummies book.
I took classes to learn the more difficult stuff such as
javascript and MX Flash.
The
games don't show up on my computer. This
is usually because your computer does not have the newest
version of FLASH. Many of the games require the latest version.
The latest version of Flash can be downloaded by visiting
www.adobe.com and clicking on "downloads". It
is free.
I
have an idea for a game, would you make it? I
would if it was a very good idea. I think the best games
are those that are creative, original, and a little bit
weird.
Do
people help you with the site? At
first, I was a one-man show, but now, I sometimes hire outside
programmers to make games based on my ideas and specifications.
For example, Place Value Pirates and Death to Decimals were
games based on my ideas that were produced by programmers
that I paid.
Do
you enjoy working on MrNussbaum.com?
It has become my passion. I spend two to three hours and
sometimes more every day maintaining it. You would be surprised
at all of the things that need constant attention when you
run a website with thousands of pages.
